


Starve Without Your Skeleton Key

by MysteryMuse



Series: Paradise Lost [3]
Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Consensual Mind Control, Guilt, Kissing, M/M, Maverick Hunters, Maverick on Hunter, Mild Sexual Content, Mildly Dubious Consent, Rare Pairings, Reploid Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1790332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysteryMuse/pseuds/MysteryMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>X returns to the scene of the crime, hoping for a miracle he doesn't deserve. Sequel to Heart Shaped Box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starve Without Your Skeleton Key

**Author's Note:**

> Unlike everything else I've posted to this account, this fic is brand new for 2014. Might be a little creaky on X's characterization because of this. It's been a while since I last wrote in this universe, but Lumine and X wouldn't leave me alone.

Some part of X hoped that Lumine was still alive.  
  
It was a treacherous, traitorous thought, and he knew it - a dangerous thought for a high-ranking Maverick Hunter and Reploid whose very mind was open to semi-frequent examination by all manner of government agencies for all manner of reasons - but X couldn't stop himself.  
  
In the few moments of privacy he had that he wasn't sharing with Zero or Axl, X worried. He remembered. The last few seconds of Lumine's life clung to him, haunting him and making him doubt every action he took. He could still feel Lumine's stuttering spasms as he lay in X's arms, his throat pierced, body cracking open. He could still feel Lumine's coolants pooling between his thighs, how the Reploid's blood had gone ice cold against his armor. X could still see Lumine's corpse out of the corner of his eye, bent backward and broken on his knees.   
  
It should have been different, X thought. He could have done something, or said something, or just... _tried harder_ , somehow, to save Lumine. Some part of X thought that Lumine had been different than Sigma, than Vile, than the hopeless gibbering wrecks the Hunters shot through the head every day in the name of mercy.  
  
 _"A reploid whose heart awakens can go Maverick at will, X... you know this."_  
  
 _"You were meant to be the one among us who feels more deeply than the rest. Where did your heart go?"_  
  
X replayed Lumine's last words over and over again in his memory.  
  
It was the memory of those words that spurred X to sign up for guard duty at the Jakob Project when shipments of supplies to the Moon resumed, when construction began again. Nobody questioned this. The project was considered as attractive a target for Mavericks as ever, and X's constant presence brought comfort to the workers.  
  
X rode the elevator three times a day, back and forth, rising and falling between the Earth and the Moon while he struggled with his conscience. And he hoped in a desperate, guilty, aching way to be caught again in the gaze of a keen golden eye. 

* * *

  
It'd been a bad day already, and on the third trip to the lunar surface X quietly slipped away from the workers and went east, driven by frustration and a simmering, selfish resentment. The Federation didn't understand - not the needs of the Hunters, not the needs of their own people, not anything. It had been Lumine's death that had shocked X into realizing how numb he was becoming to his own life, and he had started putting up a fight for the things he cared about. Not that it mattered; no one was listening to him.  

Who was X, a mere Maverick Hunter, a government dog, to be getting ideas above his station? Even _Zero_ didn't understand that his feelings were changing. It was like the 7th all over again; whenever he tried to talk to Zero about certain things, Zero just closed off, shut down the conversation before it could even start. Maybe because he was too afraid to admit the scope of his own anger to himself. Iris and Repliforce had never stopped being a sore spot, and only now, obsessed with his memories of Lumine, did X truly understand Zero's lingering grief for the female Navigator. But they couldn't talk about it, because Zero wouldn't, and X didn't know how to approach the conversation in a way that wasn't threatening. So they weren't talking much lately, and it hurt.

X cleared the approved areas around the foot of the Elevator - there wasn't much in place to stop him - and raced blindly into the grey plains beyond, pouring his bad feelings into his dash engines, hurling himself across broad chasms in the lunar surface.

He realized after he was already halfway there that he was making a beeline toward the coordinates of the Sigma Palace. Fine, he thought, and pushed himself to get there faster. He wasn't sure if it would still be there, but as he crossed the dunes of cold grey dust he saw it still standing.  
  
The Palace seemed even more grave than X remembered, as Lumine's power and will were no longer present, and the site's generators were dead. Only distant star-twinkle and a pale blue-grey glimmer from the atmosphere of the Earth touched the white stone pillars: nearer to darkness than light. X had to navigate more by body memory than by vision.  
  
As X made his way across the amethyst spikes and into the silence of the palace, his core was thundering. He knew he was breaking a terrible taboo, and perhaps even risking his life in a foolish way. He had often yearned to return to former battle sites and reflect, but he had never allowed himself to do so before - it wasn't something he could afford to risk. Mavericks were never mourned, never acknowledged, no matter what they had been before their fall, and the evidence of them was erased almost before the bodies had finished cooling. They simply vanished.   
  
On Earth, at least. On the Moon, he could still escape being "X, the Maverick Hunter", even if just for a short time.  
  
It didn't take him long to reach the throne room. The evidence of the battle was still etched into the stones, black streaks and gashes marring the floors and the pillars. X walked to the place where Lumine died, and then he crouched, placing a small grey stone on the spot. There were no words he could say, no reminiscence he could comfort himself with, other than admitting that he was guilty. He didn't even have the words, the framework to express everything he felt. Humans believed in a God, an afterlife, they had invented systems for dealing with grief, but Reploids had none of those, and had never had the time or space to create them. There was no shape or form that could contain X's sorrow.  
  
He let his bile and anger and grief swell up, let himself go, indulging in his emotions, and the silence of the Moon only seemed to encourage it. It could hold the secrets of one small and lonely Reploid.  X wanted to fill the entire palace - no, all of space, the whole space between Earth and the Moon - with a howl of rage and discontent. He wanted everyone to hear. His soul screamed: _unfair, unfair, **unfair**. _

His life was _unfair_. Lumine's death was _unfair_. Zero's grief was _unfair_. Everything was wrong.

X was so angry he shook, so angry his fists clenched, so angry his body began to glow of its own accord, casting a hot orange light against the shadows; it terrified him to feel it, and yet he clung to it and let it wash over him because it was real, something his own, something true.  
   
 _I want things to be different, I want me to be different, but I don't know how. I don't know how, Lumine._ _Help me._  
   
And then there was a light, a warm blue glow, tickling along the plates of his back and slipping under his armor and sneaking around his thighs to cast a long shadow from the stone lying on the floor.    
  
"They do say that the first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one, X."  
  
X froze, and his feelings went blank all at once, like a switch had been flipped off. He was too trained a Hunter not to react by leaping to his feet, spinning, and levelling his Buster arm. But the gaze of a bright gold eye caught and snared him, and his arm dropped immediately to his sides. He stared, open-mouthed, blinking. Relief and horror smashed together. He had a single moment of hysteria, a terror that he'd conjured Lumine up somehow out of the force of his rage, like he'd summoned a demon.  
  
Lumine, hovering lightly above the ground a few feet away, gave X a dry smile, a knowing arch of the brow, eye flicking down the length of X's gun barrel. "However, that's not to say the course of change will run easily, given your first instinct to everything that surprises you is still to shoot at it rather than speak to it."  
  
X stammered and turned several shades redder, but he shook his head and shook his arm so that his Buster flapped back into his forearm and his open hand reemerged. And then he reached out toward Lumine, shakily. "Ah... I... You're alive," He said, knowing he was blathering.  
  
Lumine's smile grew pointed, but he drifted across the gap and gently slid his hand over X's palm, tangled their fingers together. His grip was cool and firm. "Of course I am. Honestly, did you think I would allow the Maverick Hunters to have a confrontation with my true body after I spent so much time and effort misleading them about every other part of my plan?"  As he took hold of X's hand, the Maverick gently extended his field to include X, and X was lightly tugged off the ground, so that they both floated together a few inches above the ruined stones.  
  
"I'm so relieved. I, I wanted to..." X stumbled over his thoughts, all his snarled emotions. He couldn't find his way through them, so he redirected. "How did you know I was... would be here?"  
  
"I knew you would come eventually," Lumine answered. "I couldn't predict when exactly, but that's why there are motion-activated cameras in the world." The Maverick giggled quietly, and pointed over X's shoulder toward one of the pillars. X turned and looked, and frowned; he still couldn't see anything. He had to go into a magnification setting to notice the tiny red dot high at one side of the pillar. Once he recognized it, he gave a little grunt. "Hm."  
  
Lumine nodded. "In any case, now that you and I are both here, the question is, what happens next, X? Do we play out the silly game of Hunter and Maverick again? Do you want to try and coerce me to return with you again? Take my place in that decaying world along side you? Or are you willing to take a leap into a place that is neither safe nor familiar, trusting only my word that I have no plan to hurt you?"  
  
X closed his eyes - risking it, so close to a Maverick - and inhaled vaccuum. "I wanted to talk to you again. But now that you're here, I honestly don't know what I wanted to say or how I feel," he admitted, mouth moving to one side, regretful. He peeked at Lumine through his eyelashes, and pushed himself to speak some piece of his tangled heart. "I guess... I wanted to say that I was sorry, that I wished I'd done something better, or just differently. I wanted you to know I didn't forget what you said. That I listened, that it mattered to me. I've thought about it. Every day since then. And that - it wasn't right that we killed you." X paused, then repeated it, more firmly. Treasonous words that would get him killed, but the small yearning part of him ached to put his truth into voice. "It wasn't right. Maybe none of it has ever been right."  
  
The Maverick shivered, and his fingers tightened around X's. It looked very much like Lumine was about to cry, his visible eye glimmering, but he gathered his emotions up quickly, and regained his balance. "If it took my death to make you begin to see, I would gladly die a hundred more times to prove the point. On behalf of all the Reploids that you killed, I accept your apology, X. You are finally speaking from your heart, and I longed for this day to come." Lumine thought for a moment, as he began to direct their drift backward, away from the dais, pulling X gently along with him and closer to him. "Do you trust me, X?"  
  
X cocked his head. "I probably shouldn't. I'm not afraid of you, but I'm not sure I can trust you just yet, either."  
  
The Maverick laughed. "That's probably wise. But for the moment, at least? Do you think you could try?"  
  
X met Lumine's gaze with his own, and mentally steeled himself. "For the moment."  
  
Lumine's free hand slowly, cautiously found its way to settle at the small of X's back, just at the base of his spine. Even more carefully, never breaking eye contact with the Hunter, Lumine pulled X closer and closer until they were pressed together chest to chest, with Lumine's arms settling around X. X tensed, a little, but remained still, not resisting but not melting either; he was careful, too.  
  
Lumine gazed at X's mouth, thoughtful. "It's terribly inappropriate, but I am so curious what your lips taste like, X." He tipped his head closer, hovering just shy of X, and murmured, gold eye bright, wide. "Will you indulge me?"  
  
X took in a breath. He could feel a fascination, thick and thunderous, starting to form between them, their individual energies kinking together and twining into a strong singular pulse, and he knew in a sense it was already too late to stop; their bodies had already decided, ahead of their minds. He was aching, and hurt, and Lumine was there, alive, a forgiveness he didn't deserve. So he answered Lumine by closing the gap, and letting their lips touch.

 _I want to feel you, too._  
  
It was chaste, feathery, and simple, just barely a kiss, but it knocked the breath out of both Hunter and Maverick just the same. They were crossing a line, and in the moment their personas shattered and broke; they were hungry, yearning creatures, just two Reploids, exactly the same, exactly alike in their desires. There was nothing simple about the moment, nothing black and white. Lumine's arms tightened in around X, and X slid his arms over Lumine's shoulders; they both murmured, and snuggled into each other, and made a new shape together.  
  
It could have turned aggressive, but it didn't. Instead, they took their time, kissing each other over and over, soft and slow, demure, almost disbelieving. Light as birds, they drifted aimlessly over the grey dust of the lunar surface, disappearing into the sensations and forgetting everything else. X gradually relaxed, surrendering himself to Lumine, and embracing the Maverick's will within his subsystems. At some point they slid flat, so that Lumine draped atop X, who floated on his back on air, held up by Lumine's power. They continued to breathe hot against each other's mouths, kissing, drifting, peaceful and still as the lunar sea.  
  
Lumine eventually murmured into X's neck. "Stay with me, X. Don't go back to Earth. That world no longer needs us." He pressed against X's mouth a little then, to convey how much he wanted that. "I would like to keep you. I would like to strip all those foul things from your old life away and return you to your true form. Give up being a Hunter. Say you will."  
  
X shifted against Lumine, knee sliding along Lumine's leg, head spinning with a dreamy sense of pleasure. Lumine's power pulsed deeply through his body, cool, steady, and soothing. X's cares and concerns had melted into abstractions, and the cycling energy flowing between their forms felt as inevitable and natural as if they had been built together. He thought a little of Zero, not ashamed, but wistful.  "I can't become a Maverick... anyway, where would we go?" he wondered, tipping his head back to look at the planet looming over the horizon, hands pressing against the back of Lumine's head. "They'll look for me. Zero will, at least."   
  
The Maverick chuckled. "Zero will do as he's told. X, believe me when I say that I can free you of that life, if you will only let me." Lumine's fingers trilled down the center of X's armor, sending a frisson of light into his mind. "I'm not asking you to join me as a Maverick. That may not even be possible for you in your true state. I'm only asking you to stop being a Hunter, and stay with me so that I can protect you."  
  
X blinked, eyes going wide, and he lifted his head. "Nobody's ever promised to protect me. Not even Zero."  
  
"I know. Zero promised to kill you if you became something other than yourself, and in his mind it's the same thing as protecting you, but it isn't really the same thing at all." Lumine shook his head. "It feels strange I should have to beg you to let me free you, but this is a choice only you can make, X."  
  
X nodded, and slid his mouth over Lumine's again. "I make bad choices," he sighed, after. "Maybe I shouldn't make any for a while."  
  
Lumine inhaled sharply, face growing hot, fingers digging into X's hips. "If you give me that power, X, I will use it. Without hesitation. And you will have no recourse against my choices, because I will not be swayed from my decisions. If you truly wish to be enslaved to be freed, I will do that. I don't think that's truly what you want. You've become used to being led and taking orders without question, because that's what your life has been. But when you see with your own eyes, you won't let anyone make any decisions for you ever again."  
  
X touched his fingertips over Lumine's mouth, tenderly. "I only mean... historically, I haven't really done the right things." The Hunter grimaced, a hundred old memories filtering back, and it pushed him over the edge. "I'm saying yes, Lumine." He gasped, realizing the weight of the moment. Then he fluttered, fidgeted, rethought himself. But in the end, he could only hear one truth echoing from his core. "I'm ... yes. I don't want to be a judge, jury and executioner any more. I won't be used to hurt others, or my friends, but I want to change, Lumine." He shuddered, but nodded at himself. With a channel to finally speak, the words bubbled out of him, almost frantic, before he could stop himself again. "Help me change. That's what I wanted when I came here. I wanted you to... to save me from myself. The thing I know I'm turning into. And... not just me. Zero, Axl too. _We need help_."  
  
The Maverick's eye lit up, bright with triumph. Lumine cupped his hand against X's cheek. Somehow he managed to keep his voice level, with effort. "I will not betray your trust. It serves my goals no purpose to lie to you. I will keep you, and keep you safe, and guide you back to the self that you should have been from the beginning. We may be able to save your friends once we are done. But for now, I can only help you. So if you wish this, discard your armor now, X. It contains monitoring devices and is no longer necessary. I actually have plans for a new armor set for you already prepared, a body that can not be used for war. When we go to the new world, we can begin testing it."  
  
Lumine pulled X even closer, resting his head over X's shoulder, their warm faces pressed cheek to cheek.  "You don't know how long I've waited for this day, X."  
  
There was a brilliant flare of white light.    
  


* * *

  
  
Three days later, the Mechaniloids dispatched to look for X after he failed to report in only found his empty armor in fragments, scattered over a 60 foot radius, in the middle of the Mare Serenitatus. Fragments of white and purple armor were also found, and the scraps were identified as a match to the Maverick known as Lumine. It was widely assumed that a battle had taken place, one that no human could ever know the details of.

Two months later, the S-class Maverick Hunters Zero and Axl also mysteriously disappeared during a routine patrol. Their bodies were never found.

**Author's Note:**

> Clearly, Lumine's "new world" is just his harem. ;D


End file.
